


Autopilot

by mddnapstablook



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Treatment of a Minor Injury, Valentine's Day, also miu and angie are both there for like a second as well, background tenmiko and oumasai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 07:11:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17782907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mddnapstablook/pseuds/mddnapstablook
Summary: Maki moves on autopilot and embarrasses herself. It ends up working out.





	Autopilot

It's a stupid, ridiculous mistake, and she does it without even thinking. In her defense, the action was nearly second nature, she'd done it so many times up to that point.

First, Maki would like everyone to know that everything is and likely always will be, Kokichi's fault. Second, Valentine's Day is a stupid holiday. She's said as much while she watched Kirumi and Kaede and Angie work in the past days to decorate the school with construction paper chains and lace hearts. 

“So there's no one you want to spend the day with, Maki?” Kaede had asked with a tilt of her head. “Not even-?”

“No,” Maki had replied. 

“Atua says he will be your Valentine, Maki! Oh, what luck!” Angie giggles as she toddles dangerously on the top of a ladder. Specifically, the step that reads, 'this is not an actual step, please do not stand on the top of the ladder.’

“Ah, Angie, be careful!” Kaede cautions. 

“Maki, if you would like, I could make chocolates for you to present to the person of your choice. I understand your distaste for the holiday, but I would hate if you were left out.” Kirumi offers. Maki shakes her head.

“No thanks. Like I said, I don't have anyone in mind.” 

Kirumi smiles, but doesn't say anything else, and that's that, in Maki’s opinion. 

But then the day actually arrives and it's not as though Maki can really avoid the way her classmates are gushing about plush bears and who-gave-who what and how long it takes to make chocolate. Before class has even started, she's already had to watch Tenko and Himiko stumble through giving each other candy, and if _that_ hadn't been painful enough, Shuichi keeps shooting Kokichi hopeful looks while the latter bounces in his seat. Maki narrows her eyes at the menace. He's clearly planning something, and the thought makes her more irritated than it normally would. 

Then, Kaito finally decides to show up, and he flashes Maki his megawatt smile as he slips into the seat beside her. “Good morning, Maki Roll! Happy Valentine's day.”

Maki turns away to stare at her desk. “Good morning,” she replies.

“You gonna give anyone candy?” And the way he asks it, like it doesn't matter one way or another, it makes her fidget in her seat. She turns back to look at him as she shakes her head. “Huh, figured you weren't the type!” He says, grin still slapped on his face. 

She doesn't reply, but she figures she doesn't need to. And just then, all the lights go out, and the room is blanketed in darkness.

Several people shout, and she hears rustling around, and somewhere there's an “ow” that Maki registers as Kaito, all with some underlying hissing noise that she can't place when finally the lights flip back on, and Kokichi is standing at the front of the classroom with a can of silly string. 

Looking around, it only takes a second to confirm her suspicion: Shuichi is blinking in confusion in his seat as he's now covered in pink strings. “What-” he begins to question, when Kokichi interrupts.

“Nishishi, I've chosen you, my beloved Shuichi! Now you have to be my Valentine!” He says, smile on his face. Kaede aww’s from somewhere in the room, and Shuichi flushes under the attention. 

“I mean, you could have just asked.” 

“Yeah, no kidding!” Kaito groans from the floor. “What's the big deal, turning out the light like that? I thought something could have seriously gone wrong!”

“What were you even doing trying to walk around in pitch blackness, dumbass?” Miu laughs.

Kaito rushes to defend himself, jumping to his feet. “Hey! I was- whoa,” he blinks and stumbles a bit. “Head rush! Anyway, I was gonna try to turn the lights back on, obviously!”

Shuichi stands tensely, pulling a few of the strings from his clothes. “Kaito, are you alright? Did you hit your head?” 

“Yeah, but I'm fine! No need to worry,” Kaito waves it off, and Kokichi agrees.

“Yeah, if there really was something wrong, Maki would deal with it anyway, right?” He asks as he skips over. “Maybe you should take Kaito down to the nurse, just to be safe.”

Maki glares at him, because she knows what he's doing, and she knows Kaito is just fine. But beside her, Shuichi hums with concern.

“Just to be safe, right?” He asks hesitantly, and God damn it, Maki is dragging Kaito down the hall to the nurse's office. 

But of course, they attend Hope’s Peak, so the nurse is actually a student who is in the middle of class, so the nurse’s office is empty when they arrive. Maki crosses her arms as she takes in the room, and she realizes that unless she wants to search through a billion classrooms to find one random kid, she's going to have to be the one to… check Kaito out, as it were. Ugh.

It's not really a big deal- at the orphanage, she was constantly taking care of the younger children. If it wasn't feeding them, it was playing with them or putting them to bed, or helping them with schoolwork. And, occasionally, she’d have to tend to a few cuts or scrapes. Nothing crazy.

Kaito takes the news well, at any rate, lowering his head for Maki to inspect. She moves hair around to get a look at his scalp, and he laughs once, says it tickles. She scoffs and resumes checking for any sign of injury, but beyond a slowly developing lump, he's perfectly fine. “Idiot,” she begins, patting the carefully gelled spike of his hair. “You're perfectly fine.”

And this is where she messes up. 

In the orphanage, everything was routine. Get up, care for the others, go to bed. Even that is broken into smaller routines, little rituals that she does to help the kids. 50 strokes with a brush to fix a girl's hair or a mix of two bedtime stories and a lullaby to finally set them down for a nap.

And, when someone got hurt, she'd carefully check the wound, clean it, and bandage it. But children were sniveling, awful things that thought they were dying from a scraped elbow and still believed that a fairy would come and take their teeth at night, so sometimes, a little lie was necessary. A lie like placing a kiss on the injury would help it to heal faster. It was second nature, it was autopilot.

First, Maki had checked the wound. She'd traded cleaning and patching Kaito up for an insult and a pat to the head, and then- then she'd kissed him, right below where the hair gel mixed with purple strands.

Immediately, she takes two steps backwards.

“I didn't mean to do that,” she says, heart thudding in her throat.

Kaito straightens up and rubs the back of his head, his injury, and also the place where Maki just kissed him. “Yeah? So… Why did you, then?” 

“I don't know,” she breathes out. “I didn't mean to. When I would take care of the kids in the orphanage when they got hurt, I'd kiss their injuries, it made them feel better.” She explains hastily, but really there is no recovering from this. She thinks she'd rather run drills again until she throws up if it meant not having to stand there for another minute. 

“Oh,” Kaito replies, intelligent as ever. “Could I try something?” 

Maki stops herself from saying, “Please don't.” As uncomfortable as she's feeling at the moment, she's curious about what he’ll do. Hesitantly, she nods.

And then, Kaito's grinning like an idiot and taking a step forward, and another, and then he's cupping Maki’s face and pulling her into a kiss. 

It's overwhelming, and Maki pulls away instantly. “Why did you do that?” She asks, not at all calmly, but her voice doesn't waver so it doesn't matter.

“I wanted to thank you!” Kaito replies, as if it's really just that simple. Then, with a flush, he looks away and rubs the back of his neck. “And, y’know. It's Valentine's day and… I like you, y’know?” 

Maki doesn't, in fact, _know_ , and the confession throws her for a loop. “Why?” 

“Well,” Kaito laughs. “What's not to like?” 

Maki folds her arms across her chest. “I don't have anything for you. Like… chocolate or whatever.”

“That's alright, I did kinda drop all this on you at once. And like I said, you don't really seem like the type to do that anyway.” Kaito says. “So! We should head back now. Let's get goin’!”

Maki isn't that type of person, but she _could_ be, couldn't she? Was it too late in the day for her to make chocolates before it was over? Reluctantly, two hours later, Maki approaches Kirumi and barely has a greeting out of her mouth when the maid hands her a small red box of candy with a smug smile.

When she presents it to Kaito, he beams. “Did you make these yourself?” He questions, popping one into his mouth. “Or was it Kirumi?”

“Do you want to die?” Maki growls, face heating up. He laughs and holds one out to her. “Happy Valentine's day, Maki. Again!” The idiot says.

“...Happy Valentine's day, Kaito.”

**Author's Note:**

> God I die over literally any ship from this game. Except maybe Tenko/any male character. But anyway! Quick Valentine's day fic bc why not? I hope you enjoyed this!!


End file.
